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The housing market ended 2022 with the highest annual growth since the bursting of the housing bubble between 2007 and 2012. During 2022, the purchase of an apartment has risen by 8.1%, according to the latest data from the valuation company Tinsa. Buying a house with an area of 80 square meters costs an average of 11,000 euros more now than in December 2021.
Housing as a whole functioned as an anti-inflationary shield. «Thus, the average annual change is 8.1%, which is quite consistent with the average price increase for the year, which was about 8.5%», explains Spain's largest appraiser in his year-end report.
The figures are «bullish», but far from corresponding to those achieved during the «bubble», when an 80-meter apartment cost more than 172,000 euros. At the moment, prices are 18.7% lower than historical highs on average in the country. Since reaching the minimum in 2015, housing has grown by 35.7%.
CHANGING TRENDS?
«Housing transactions remain at a high level, and the total volume for the year to the third quarter of 2022 reflects an upward trend. In the last quarter, the dynamics on an annualized basis begins to indicate moderation after the change in the monetary policy of the European Central Bank, which makes us expect a slowdown in economic growth and, accordingly, pushes us to tighten the criteria for granting loans from financial institutions», Tinsa says.
According to real estate portals, in 2023 sales may fall by 10%-20% due to changes in economic policy. This means that by the end of 2023, there will be about half a million housing transactions, compared with more than 600,000 in 2022, and this figure will be confirmed by the National Institute of Statistics.
As for prices, over the next 12 months, no agent predicts a large overall drop. Most reports of financial institutions estimate growth from 1% to 3%, while others give a drop of less than 3%. One aspect on which they all agree is that in 2023 the real movement of the housing market will be negative, since the increase in apartment prices will be lower than inflation in the economy.
The regions where the cost of buying a home has increased the most since December 2021 are Aragon, Cantabria and Asturias, where the growth was 12.5%, 11.2% and 10.3%, respectively. The regions with the lowest growth, less than 5%, are Catalonia, the Canary Islands and Melilla.